Lee Tzu-Hsun solo exhibition

Lee Tzu-Hsun says that finding balance in his life has always been difficult. On the one hand, he is a well of emotions; on the other, a paragon of rectitude and calm. In an extreme example, he once wore the same outfit – black trousers, a white shirt and a black V-neck sleeveless jumper – for four years in a row. It is through art, he says, that he finds ‘reconciliation’ between his opposite halves.

Pace Beijing is currently hosting Lee’s first solo show on the Mainland, three years after the Taiwanese-born artist moved here from Saarbrücken, the small German town he calls home. His works display all the traits of a wonderfully mad scientist. ‘Ukranian Aircraft No 2 (2011)’ is a leaf-green contraption that turns in circles on Pace’s white-washed wall, clicking and revving like a complex toy train set. It looks vaguely like the kind of airship you might see in a Studio Ghibli film. The mechanical creations in this exhibition are reminiscent not only of kitchen appliances, but human bodies and organs. In the middle of one room, a bowl of water and the faces of two workers are formed into a shape reminiscent of a womb.

‘For me, creating art is like the act of carrying out research,’ says the Christian artist. ‘Machinery has a language of its own. When I was little, I was fascinated by the structure of automobiles; how one little cog turning leads to another one moving, bringing the whole thing into movement. I think of the world as a huge machine, and of us as its parts, just like the gears and cogs of an engine.’

But although he strives towards perfection, Lee claims his creations are actually a mirror of the constant change and imperfections of humans and nature. ‘I pick out and collect little pieces of the world and of human life that already exist around me and reproduce them using my own perspective,’ says the softly spoken artist. ‘I respect the changes and accidents in my work that happen as it goes along.’

Clare Pennington, with additional reporting by Penelope Peng

Originally posted in Time Out Beijing